MTA Boss Lays Out Plan for Higher Fares, Tolls

The final proposal to increase fares and tolls across New York City’s transportation network next year faced a difficult challenge: how best to spread the pain of higher prices.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority Chairman Joseph Lhota was under pressure to balance needed fare and toll hikes with measures to limit their effects on low-income transit riders, according to board members who consulted on the proposal released Thursday. His recommendations suggest raising base fares and the price unlimited MetroCards while preserving some important discounts.

The cost of a monthly unlimited ride MetroCard would rise to $112 from $104

A weekly unlimited ride card would rise to $30 from $29

The base fare for subways and buses would become $2.50, up from $2.25

A single-ride ticket would go up to $2.75 from $2.50

The bonus for putting cash on a pay-per-ride card drops from 7% to 5% of the amount added, but kicks on expenditures of at least $5 (down from the current $10 threshold.

Lhota also proposed a policy the MTA has considered before but never implemented: a $1 fee for the purchase of a new MetroCard, intended to encourage riders to fill up empty cards rather than throwing them away.

The MTA chairman had to solve the perennial problem of Staten Island, the borough most heavily dependent on toll bridges.

Under Lhota’s plan, the E-ZPass toll on the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge will rise to $10.66 for non-residents of the island, an increase of $1. Staten Island residents will pay $6.36 with an E-ZPass, and the toll drops to $6 for drivers who cross at least three times per month.

Giving that extra discount to frequent Verrazano users will mean “a few cents more” from toll payers at the other MTA bridges, Lhota said in a memo to board members. But while tolls will rise on every MTA bridge — with the increases varying between 8.2% and 9.3% – the discounts for drivers who use E-ZPass will be “greater than the discount that currently exists,” the memo said.

The new fares and tolls, if enacted, would take effect in March and raise some $382 million in new revenue for the MTA next year and $450 million annually thereafter. The MTA budget also envisions on another round of fare hikes in 2015.